


Puppy Training

by tjs_whatnot



Category: White Collar
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:52:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4822856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts with a night time wander...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppy Training

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Run the Con in a panicked hour before the deadline. Completely un-beta'd and barely looked at twice.  
> Hope it makes sense.

The first time Neal spent the night, the first night he stumbled into the guest room, a drunken Elizabeth showing him the extra blanket and giving him choices of pillows, he had felt like an out-of-town family member, a cousin that you didn’t know well, but well enough to take in instead of setting up in a hotel. 

She handed him a stack of towels, a toothbrush still in its package, a travel size toothpaste and a pair of pajamas. He was just sober enough to wonder how they just had these things for guests. And he wondered if the pajamas were just an old pair of Peter’s. She kissed him on the cheek in very much an out-of-town-cousin way. He was glad that Peter had passed out hours before. He didn’t want to imagine this awkward scenario with his presence in it.

As he pulled on the pajama bottoms and they immediately slid down his legs, at least two sizes too big, he giggled. _Definitely Peter’s_ he thought, pulling them back up and synching tight the drawstrings. The idea of swimming around in the tops, being strangled by the extra fabric in his sleep and he decided against them. His undershirt would be fine.

Still, the idea of wearing these clothes that Peter had once worn gave him much to think about and he was looking forward to the dreams they might bring.

***

The first time Neal spent the night, the first night El had kissed him and left him to settle in the guest room she had walked back to her and sighed against the door frame. Neal in his guest room, Peter snoring away in the bed before her and the world seemed right and made sense. _My boys_ she thought and giggled.

She snuggled into Peter’s chest, her head rising and falling with every breath he took, held and released and she hugged him tight. She was just about to fall asleep, just about to get her breath matched to his when she heard the bedroom door creak open. She smiled. She hadn’t dared to wish it, but she had hoped.

Neal walked in slow and El watched, his silhouette’s stark contrast against the hall’s light. He closed the door slightly, leaving a sliver of light to see by, but when he turned, El saw with that sliver of light, that his eyes were closed. 

“Neal?” she whispered.

Peter sat up. “What?”

“It’s okay, honey. Neal’s just… sleepwalking.”

“Huh?” Peter mumbled, still mostly sleeping himself.

“Some watchdog,” El said, sliding out of bed and coming to Neal. She looked at Satchmo asleep at the end of the bed. “You’re no better.”

She gently put one hand on his forearm and another on his shoulder, trying to remember what she had heard about people and sleepwalking. All she could remember is that you shouldn’t wake them. 

“Neal…” she tried to turn him. “Do you want to go back to bed?”

He didn’t move, but his head turned towards her voice, as if she was working her way into his dream state. 

She let go of him and he instantly slumped to the floor, sitting cross legged at the foot of their bed. 

“Um, okay.”

“What do we do with him?” Peter whispered, apparently his wine addled mind had decided to clear enough to notice something was off.

She shrugged. “Make him comfortable?”

“There on the floor?”

“Do _you_ want to pick him up and carry him back to bed?”

She didn’t wait for his response. She instead reached for the pile of decorative pillows she pulled off the bed every night and made a nest for her visitor. She pushed him gently and he slumped over onto the pile and they both sighed. 

***

The first time Neal spent the night, the first time he wandered into their bedroom still asleep and made himself comfortable, El had asked Peter if he wanted to carry him back to the guest room, he should have done it. Should have put a stop to it right then and there. Looking at Neal standing there in his overly large pajama bottoms and he looked so childlike that Peter imagined that he could just pick him up and take him back to bed, tuck him in. 

Something in him didn’t want to though. Something in him told Peter that this was exactly where Neal belonged. Not there on the floor,though that was just a start, but there with them. Always with them. 

El climbed back in bed with Peter. 

“What?” she asked his smile.

“This is exactly how it started with Satch.”

“What is?” she asked.

"First it was just in the room. He was a puppy. He needed us. Then it was there on the floor. Now look at him.”

Satchmo snifled in his sleep and they both smiled.

“Will that be so bad?” El asked.

Peter laid down and pulled El close to him, listening to his dog snore on the bed and his… _what exactly?_ hum from the floor at the foot of the bed.

“Not bad at all. Though... we will need a bigger bed.”


End file.
